would be announced by the yelping of the dogs, and the last by the
hunters' horns.

Glenn and one or two others remained with Boone to hunt Bruin in his
lair, while Joe and the remainder of the company were despatched to
the passes among the hills. There was a narrow-featured Vermonter in
this party, termed, by his comrades, the Hatchet-face, and, in truth,
the extreme thinness of his chest and the slenderness of his limbs
might as aptly have been called the hatchet-handle. But, so far from
being unfit for the hardy pursuits of a hunter, he was gifted with the
activity of a greyhound, and the swiftness and bottom of a race-horse.
His name was Sneak Punk, which was always abbreviated to merely Sneak,
for his general success in creeping up to the unsuspecting game of
whatsoever kind he might be hunting, while others could not meet with
such success. He had been striding along some time in silence a short
distance in advance of Joe, who, even by dint of sundry kicks and the
free use of his whip, could hardly keep pace with him. The rest were a
few yards in the rear, and all had maintained a strict silence,
implicitly relying on the guidance of Sneak, who, though he had never
traversed these woods before, was made perfectly familiar with the
course he was to pursue by the instructions of Boone.

Although the light of morning was now apparent above, yet the thick
growth of the trees, whose clustering branches mingled in one dense
mass overhead, made it still dark and sombre below; and Joe, to divert
Sneak from his unconscionable gait, which, in his endeavours to keep
up, often subjected him to the rude blows of elastic switches, and
many twinges of overhanging grape vines, essayed to engage his
companion in conversation.